Diego Rivera artist study

As we studied Mexico, we learned about their two most famous artists and turned it into history lessons, well art history, but I don’t have an art history landing page… Hmmm…. I need to create that since I’ve actually got a fair number of them. Focus Ticia, we’re talking about the Diego Rivera art history lesson, not a theoretical someday idea. Later at some point in the future, we’ll talk about his wife, Frida Kahlo.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Diego Rivera resources

Our library had a plethora of ideas, and man I just saw another book I didn’t know they had when we studied him and I wish I had.

• Diego Rivera (famous artists series)– I love this series, it’s great for upper elementary. Just the perfect amount of information with a touch of humor.
• Diego Rivera: his world and ours– this is great for lower elementary, not at all for sarcastic high schoolers who enjoy poking fun at things, not that any of those are in my house, this book is illustrated in his art style
• Child of the flower-song people: Luz Jimenez, daughter of the Nahua– this is not specifically about Diego Rivera, but about one of his models who modeled for him and many other artists during her life, this book is illustrated in his style
• Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: their lives and ideas– Since I didn’t look in the junior fiction bookshelves, I totally missed this book. I love this series for giving you hands-on activities to do with your kids, so if you want a more in-depth unit, this is well worth using

Diego Rivera tutorial

After a bit of searching, I found this Diego Rivera art project. Most were either too simple or very long lessons on the man himself.

I liked this particular lesson because it took one of Diego Rivera’s most iconic paintings and turned it into a very simple lesson that anyone could complete.

Lessons like this take on a very different flavor when completing them with high schoolers versus elementary students.

And to be fair, elementary students can 100% complete this Diego Rivera lesson. The tutorial is very simple and only uses markers and crayons.

Much to The Artist’s dismay, she looked at the supplies and rolled her eyes. She instead chose to use oil pastels. This means her project has much more vibrant colors.

There was a lot of joking going on as we worked our way through the project. The kids were openly mocking of some of the explanations of how to make the project.

Seriously high schoolers can be hilarious to parent.

Also, after the last art history project I’ve figured out I need to buy more crayons or find where I’ve got a bunch of crayons squirreled away because our choice of crayons was rather lackluster. Same with our markers.

Though I have to admit that’s probably a bit more true to what most people have for supplies, you think you have this great set of markers and then you’re halfway through the project and discover that all of your flesh-tone markers are dry (and yes I know Crayola now has colors of the world sets, but I also am trying to not just buy cool new supplies and use up my old supplies, for better or worse)

More fun history lessons

Let’s see since this is a fairly modern artist, let’s look at various older things.

• Cave paintings at Lascaux
• Xerxes lesson
• Middle Ages Peasant Unit
• Age of Exploration dice game
• Six the Musical versus history

“Diego Rivera, Indian Boy and Indian Woman with Corn Stalks, 1926-27, Chapingo.” by Joaquín Martínez is licensed under CC BY 2.0.